29.1.06

Duas acções

Defesa e Estrangeiros no EUA reforçam acção directa Condeleeza Rice In a speech at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where students are deformed into diplomats, cancelled the tea party. Crucially, Condi named China, India, South Africa and Brazil as countries of the future while declaring that an initial 100 diplomatic slots would migrate from Europe immediately to countries that actually matter. More reassignments will follow, with even Moscow demoted to the international enlisted ranks - while Indonesia gets promoted (Double ouch!). *

Sunday, January 29, 2006; A10

Congress has granted unusual authority for the Pentagon to spend as much as $200 million of its own budget to aid foreign militaries, a break with the traditional practice of channeling foreign military assistance through the State Department. The move, included in a little-noticed provision of the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act passed last month, marks a legislative victory for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who pushed hard for the new powers to deal with emergency situations.